I think the UK should build enough solar and wind generation to meet its average daily needs. I know that won't be enough some days and will be too much on others but, guess what, you can export and import electricity down cables

Yes, it would cost a fortune to install those cables but, guess what, they are already there.

So, it would be really quite simple to trade energy so that we break even.

"The problem is that too many people, and often politicians of all stripes and globalists..."

"Any examples of these people?"

There's little point in expecting an answer to that. The word "globalists" tells you all you need to know. It means a supporter or exponent of "globalism". In its innocuous definition, this simply refers to things or ideas that go beyond the merely international, but in the mouths of right wing and far-right people, it often refers to the conspiracy theory of a supposed world economic and monetary network controlled by Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros. (See also "New World Order".)

Favoured by Trump and co., the term was used fairly frequently during his campaign and presidency to invoke the supposedly malevolent anti-American forces inside and outside the country that need to be defeated; it often has some pretty nasty anti-Semitic undertones.

In the UK "globalist" is a pejorative term with which to insult a politician who you wish to connect with a sinister left-wing agenda following some shady international doctrine.

Unfortunately, this fact isn’t that relevant when considering the cost of renewable generation, because what matters is the cost of reliable electricity which includes the electricity that has to be provided when it isn’t windy or sunny"

watt-logic.com/2022/04/11/cost-of-renewables/

It's obvious that wind and solar do not equal 'free' electricity. There's a cost for the kit, the land it stands on and for keeping it in proper condition.

To suggest however that wind or solar have no place in a mix of different generating technologies "because of high pressure and night" is nonsense on stilts.

Obviously there has to be someting to provide infill on those days. Right now it's gas.

As of ten minutes ago more than half of our electricity was from wind or solar. While that's the case were saving tons of gas and consequent CO2.

What's bad about that.

The problem is that too many people, and often politicians of all stripes and globalists want essentially ALL energy to be produced by solar and wind, with no 'mix' as you say from other forms, especially because solar and wind can never be used as base load and is still relatively young as a technology in macro terms.

Any examples of these people?

The tag-team of you, Andrew-T, FP, Terry and Bromp passing around who asks this question? Your go this time?

It would be far easier to say which (mainstream) politician isn't asking for this to be done. Personally, you lot asking such a question that you obviously know the answer to just shows that you are not debating this topic (or many others, where you do much the same) in good faith.

But then this is not surprising coming from the Left's perspective, because they can't and won't defnd their side except under their own terms, which means you have to accept their agenda/policies near 100%, otherwise you're an evil far right [insert group here]ist.

If you can't debate on your terms, you push to debate into a slanging match to get the mods to close it down. I notice that quite a few of you mostly post in the General section on politically-charged issues and don't contribute much of note elsewhere on the forum.

And you wonder why this site is in decline?

Edited by Engineer Andy on 18/02/2023 at 14:34

What makes it far worse is that using such tech often is associated with removing usable farmland and seriously despoiling the countryside, especially in areas of outstanding natural beauty.

Aren't areas of outstanding natural beauty protected from such building works? That is why they are designated as such?

There isn't an automatic statutory prevention of windfarms in an AONB, but you would need an incredibly strong case to get permission.

What makes it far worse is that using such tech often is associated with removing usable farmland and seriously despoiling the countryside, especially in areas of outstanding natural beauty.

Aren't areas of outstanding natural beauty protected from such building works? That is why they are designated as such?

Yes there are so called areas of natural beauty but there are lots more areas not given this privilege. At present in Wales a company wants to build a wind farm but to connect it to the grid means 60 miles of cabling. The company wants to use overhead pylons which is far cheaper than taking the cables underground. This will be extremely damaging to the pristine countryside that is the Towy valley. Needless to say their is a lot of opposition to the scheme not necessarily to the turbines but the eyesore of pylons which are becoming yesterdays way of doing things

I can't think of anything further to add re. freedom of speech, except that the link Alan provided is a very good summary and worthy of reading.

Moderators will remove anything that is clearly offensive. It's all in the terms signed up to and if you believe a moderating decision is wrong then use the email please.

"This statement can be difficult to quantify. Does it mean offensive to the mod personally, or something the mod thinks might possibly offend someone else, so best to censor it to be on the safe side and get in a little virtue signal ?"

What would be considered insulting by a typical contributor or reader of the forum. I think because there aren't that many contributors it's easy to overlook the fact many people are just viewing.

"In my young days (which means those of many on here) we soon learnt to take rough with smooth, and occasionally keep our counsel or give as good as we got. Spat soon over."

Big difference between on-line and real life. With the internet, it's legally classified as publishing.

"""The bolded bit has never felt like that to me and I've been in London whilst Pride is on over several occasions. If you have to go around the block or find an underpass to cross the road then so what?""

This rather infers that everyone is able bodied and capable of changing their route. A lot of people are not including OAPs My experience of London is that unless you live there you can walk miles out of your way

I understand heating oil has dropped by about 10p a litre over the last month.

I understand heating oil has dropped by about 10p a litre over the last month.

Do people who use heating oil get any help from the government regarding the cost of it or are they like people in static caraavans who seem to have missed out on any help.

Yes, you get £400 off your electricity and £200 towards the cost of oil. People in static caravans get help if they pay their own bills. If it's part of a pitch fee, the owner gets it but is supposed to pass a fair proportion on.

Where did you read this? From what I can gather, the blades on turbines can be turned individually to compensate for wind speed.

Not saying it's not true, it's just that you would have thought they'd have thought of this before spending millions.

Wind turbine owners, I assume, have agreements with National Grid to take the electricity generated.

They have invested a lot of money to put up the turbine and maintain it.

If they are prevented by National Grid from selling the energy generated, they have a legitimate claim.

If National Grid have no responsibility, it would send the wrong political message about green energy development and dissuade investment in further capacity.

The wind farmers have already lost a few turbines so you have to ask did they make a noise when they feel but being in isolate spots nobody can tell. Seriously I expect that more have failed from fall than is let on. Also quite a few of the turbines have failed through overloading and the motors have blown

Although wind power is a success energy is being wasted as the storage systems mainly rely on batteries the same as solar and for wind energy I think that is not practical for the sheer number of batteries and places to house them. So off peak when the wind blows hard and there is little demand off go the turbines. When the wind does not blow no energy.

The gov currently has a subsidy scheme of £5k for heat pumps per home worth £6 billion It is proving to be a bit of a disaster for all sort of reason. The money would be better spent on home insolation or really generous grants for solar panels. With a decent battery to store solar energy is is quite possible to be off grid most of the time depending on the sun. The pay back on the cost of solar is currently way to long but with a decent grant could be greatly improved.

The big problem with all this green stuff appears to be the sudden great rush by politicians. There just not enough resources or people training to do it in their time scales. A bit like there policies to get rid of ICE cars.

It is not as if all these green policies is going to extend the life of us humans or greatly improve the health of the nation. Quite the opposite at the moment with some freezing in their homes and no veg because our farmers can no longer afford to heat their greenhouses or hire employees to pick it

When our gas boiler needed replacing a few years ago I seriously considered a heat pump as an alternative.

Our house is on a relatively small plot, like many modern builds. That means a ground source (pipes buried under the garden) is not an option, even though it's more efficient. The only place to site an air-source heat pump is on the side of the house, but this would create a major obstruction as we are so close to our neighbours - but maybe still a possibility.

Even a relatively modern house such as this, with cavity wall and loft insulation, is not good enough to deal with the lower heat output of a heat pump compared with a gas boiler. And certainly much bigger radiators are required.

I came to the conclusion that the only way a heat pump makes sense is if it's part of the basic design of the house.

Sammy, a very clear explanation

hoofdeksel aaf

I am (sort of) a developer and we are now using heat pumps on all new builds. This is mostly because gas is supposedly vanishing in a few years' time. As we're also a landlord, we certainly don't want to be ripping out gas boilers when the time comes. Secondly, we essentially need to in order to meet the new building regulations.

We have quite significant concerns over how this is going to work for people's heating bills, but have found that we can keep them on parity with a usual gas set up.by increasing insulation levels and putting PVs on the roof to offset (some of) the running costs of the heat pump. Hopefully, as PVs improve, the homes will become cheaper to heat and produce less carbon. For now, we're just trying to keep the bills down and stick to the rules.

Last October I was house-sitting in Devon and there was a heat pump system. It wasn't cold enough to have the heating on but there was plenty of hot water. One point I noticed though was the pumps were quite noisy. They were far enough away from the house not to be a problem but if in the garden quite noticeable. Probably about the same as an idling car. I expect people would get used to it.

I will be sticking with gas until it's banned, then going electric and buy a thick coat!

Yes, they work, but the floor temperature is much lower. Usual approach for a house that has microbore would be to surface mount the the pipes or go for underfloor heating (which certainly means ripping the floors up).

If you're already super-insulated, I suspect you use your heating very little so your concern is primarily hot water. Running an immersion / thermal store powered by your PV might be better.

So do heat pumps work? Adding solar pv wouldn't help me as I already have it.

Does anyone now install the earlier non-PV variety of solar energy capture, which heated circulating water ?

This debate seems to surround the proposition that a heat pump is used to heat water to pump round existing radiators.

As this produces hot water at a lower temperature than conventional gas, existing radiators will be inadequately sized.

The alternative is to use reverse cycle aircon and heating units popular in Mediterranean climates. This is entirely capable of heating a house efficiently in cold weather.

They are fairly cheap to install - the only issue may be that separate electric heating for hot water would be required.

They were briefly popular about ten years ago here, but were being used to spoof carbon figures whilst also costing a lot more to run than gas boilers. Whilst the equation has now shifted somewhat, with gas being more expensive and PV being more feasible, they still have a bad reputation.

Energy use is still higher than for 'wet' systems and there is a perception that blown air is a lot less comfortable than convection. They do have the benefit of being able to cool in summer, but there are very few days where that's needed, and overheating can (if people can be bothered, be overcome with better design. I've been considering them recently in sheltered housing, where we like to eliminate radiators to rescue burn risks and the cooling feature is needed because overheating can be fatal for older people.

In the great scheme of things, I'm a big believer in infra red heating. It's relatively cheap, flexible and has a high comfort level. At the moment, though, most products direct their heat in very intense and narrow beams, which isn't brilliant...

"The alternative is to use reverse cycle aircon and heating units popular in Mediterranean climates. This is entirely capable of heating a house efficiently in cold weather."

But surely they are exactly what heat pumps are - or am I missing something? And if so, they would be no better at heating.

"'The alternative is to use reverse cycle aircon and heating units popular in Mediterranean climates. This is entirely capable of heating a house efficiently in cold weather.'

But surely they are exactly what heat pumps are - or am I missing something? And if so, they would be no better at heating.'"

"They are also heat pumps, but they heat air not water."

That's what I thought. So to use them to heat a whole house you would need the bulky air ducts that were in fact installed in some houses a few decades ago, or alternatively a number of them (heat pumps)/reverse cycle aircon units) installed on outside walls to heat the space immediately behind them.

I have a feeling it's not a very attractive option.

Edited by FP on 12/03/2023 at 12:07

So do heat pumps work? Adding solar pv wouldn't help me as I already have it.

Does anyone now install the earlier non-PV variety of solar energy capture, which heated circulating water ?

Solar thermal is very rare in the UK because it generally doesn't produce hot enough water so it has to be boosted by something else, usually electric immersion heaters. It's very popular in countries like Australia.

Yes it is rare. Although the evacuated tube collectors, as featured on It's Not Easy Being Green all those years ago, do seem to work quite well even in the British climate. Mind you with everyone having combi boilers fitted nowadays which don't like preheated water there's not much call for solar water heating.

So do heat pumps work? Adding solar pv wouldn't help me as I already have it.

Does anyone now install the earlier non-PV variety of solar energy capture, which heated circulating water ?

Solar thermal is very rare in the UK because it generally doesn't produce hot enough water so it has to be boosted by something else, usually electric immersion heaters. It's very popular in countries like Australia.

The problem is also that when you need heat (winter), it's not there, when you don't (summer), you have to use 'dump raditors' (usually in an external garage) or literally waste it via some kind of heat exchanger down the waste pipe, wasting huge amounts of water at the same time in order to stop the system from overheating at failing.

Solar thermal tends to be most useful when used where the domestic hot water demand is high all year around, such as for hospitals, schools, swimming pools, sports centres, barracks and the like.

Even in large houses, its usefulness is limited because the load varies so much, and thus you have to either significantly undersize the system to not overheat (much) or use the 'heat dump' arrangements if practicable, the second being very costly. Not so bad if you have your own swimming pool, but that's really the preserve of the very wealthy.

<< The problem is also that when you need heat (winter), it's not there, >>

I have always thought that the most obviously logical use for solar PV is for running the air-con when it is hot :-)

Perhaps then you need to go back to college! :-)

And that's why storage is key.

Both solar thermal and PV are fundamentally flawed in delivering energy in the UK. But they are still worth installing.

In winter heating demand is higher due to lower ambient temperatures. Hot water demand may be higher, if only as incoming water temperatures are lower and require more energy.

In winter daylight hours are less, and sunshine hours much lower - in Greater London sun hours from May to August are ~4 times as high as |December and January.

Finding the optimal system size is complex - bigger will provide a greater % of energy in winter, generate surplus energy in summer (dump or sell back to grid), and cost more.

Obviously far easier to sell surplus electricity generated from PV back to the grid, especially as battery walls (a familiy member has just got one with PV at great cost) aren't cheap, unfortuntaley with solar thermal that really can't be done, at least without whole areas having 'community heating' networks with loads of heat exchangers and underground pipes everywhere.

Better for large new build housing developments and where nearby factories generate a lot of waste heat. Sadly not much joined-up thinking at council and national level as regards practicable schemes in my experience.

Most leasehold flats, outside of councils and housing associations, have their freehold vested in a management company once the developer has sold the last one. The leaseholders are the shareholders of the management company, which usually employs a (completely incompetent) managing agent.

To put PVs on the roof would need the management company's approval and, quite possibly, several or all of the leaseholders to contribute even if they don't get the power from them. If the leaseholders bought out the freehold between them (collective enfranchisement) they would have a bit more control, but you'd still need to get everyone to agree. Normally, people can't agree on where to park a car, walk a dog etc so not much hope when you want to spend thousands.

Presumably the management company which owns the freehold could rent out the roof to a company wishing to install solar panels and sell the electricity to the residents.